


For All is Fleeting

by izumidos



Series: AkaKuro Week 2017 [5]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AkaKuro Week 2017, Boys In Love, Break Up, Friendship/Love, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Teikou Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 04:07:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10631865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izumidos/pseuds/izumidos
Summary: Transcience: a state of temporariness.Yes, that’s what Teikou is now and always had been: temporary. But the memories and the people, they linger.No longer is Teikou his middle school but instead, a symbol of the temporariness in basketball and in Akashi. It’s three quick years, gone in an instant, just like how basketball will be in the end and how Akashi was in the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> it's your standard teikou angsty story because im a basic bitch lmao. anyway, forgive me if i messed up the order of events because it's been a while since i watched the teikou arc. i hope you enjoy!

Akashi confesses one month into the school year, the third and last one in their middle school lives.

 

It comes to Kuroko as a surprise, hearing his captain be so blatant about something like  _ feelings _ . He’s blunt when it comes to a lot of things, especially with basketball and education, but they’re two very different things from emotions or love that Kuroko doesn’t respond immediately like he usually does when Akashi talks to him. Something like this is jarring, even for him.

 

Yet on the other hand, a part of him is already functioning with the new information, and it’s shouting with glee; it’s the part of him that he’s kept hidden for three long years, the facet that accidentally ended up falling in love with Akashi Seijuurou at first sight. But for as idealistic as he seems, Kuroko is more realistic than anything, and refused to believe, for the longest time, in the false hope of Akashi returning his feelings.

 

Except, it’s the other way around now, isn’t it?

 

Kuroko silently sighs at his younger self for being so pragmatic at a young age; if only he had still been childish enough to believe in false hopes and love at first sight. He wouldn’t have been cheated out of an extra two years of a relationship with his captain. A shame really, but Kuroko figures that it’s too late to regret it.

 

He only looks up at the redhead and smiles softly, the spring sunshine hitting the back of Akashi’s head and illuminating him underneath the clear, blue skies. The cherry blossoms fall gracefully and silently around them, similar to Akashi as he sits down next to Kuroko on the ground.

 

Akashi intertwines his hand with Kuroko’s -- gently and reverently -- and returns the smile as he leans in to whisper softly in his ear. Kuroko blushes the slightest bit at Akashi’s words, lips curving up into a smile that Akashi soon mirrors.

 

It is a beautiful thing, being in love.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a quiet relationship, but it’s how they like it.

 

Romanticism is a new and almost  _ shy  _ experience for them, even Akashi, one that’s only reserved for the indoors of Kuroko’s home and the hidden gardens in Akashi’s house when his father wasn’t there; the only romantic things they’ll show explicitly to the world are the moments where their gazes meet, both softening at simply seeing the other.

 

It feels like a dream, how perfect and simple their relationship is, that Kuroko finds himself imagining what a future with Akashi might be like. It’s a nice daydream, but Kuroko isn’t a fool still; if his younger self was already considered so pragmatic, he’d hate to know what he’d be called now.

 

He starts to sense the downfall of the team earlier than everyone except Akashi, but he’s the only one to even attempt remedying the situation. Of course, nothing works, not when it’s him: Kuroko Tetsuya, resident weakling who suddenly doesn’t matter anymore to his old friends, to his  _ boyfriend _ .

 

He just watches as his paradise comes crumbling down, the team starting to fight each other constantly. A day doesn’t pass without someone making a comment and starting an argument that nears physical or without Aomine skipping; it makes his head hurt, heart ache, and, despite expecting it, he feel himself nearly break from it all.

 

He doesn’t, though. It just steels his resolve even more to save them.

 

But it gets worse when the tension is finally high enough for Murasakibara to challenge their captain. With a hulking body and towering height, it’s no surprise that he earns the four points out of five game easily; what  _ is _ a surprise – a painful one at that – is Akashi’s sudden turnaround and, in extension, his victory.

 

When Kuroko is the only one left there, staring at the new Akashi with fear clutching his heart tightly, the redhead turns, and Kuroko feels everything slipping away. There’s no looking back to see him and help him, not even Akashi; Kuroko only has to take a quick glance at the glinting eyes to know that he’s lost everything.

 

Including Akashi.

 

It’s a lie. He ends up losing Ogiwara too later on when he goes to visit; his blue eyes had gone wide at his learning of the outcome of  _ that _ match, the one that had split his team for good and the one that broken both him and Ogiwara until nothing was salvageable. He’s only debris now, left in the wake of the natural disaster that is Teikou.

 

But at least he’s now sure that he’s on his own, so he has no one else to disappoint, to miserably fail them. He doesn’t know, though, if it’s possible to get his friends back; if he’s willing to try again.

 

His answer comes in the form of him lying in his bed with a bandaged head, hand gripping tightly on the pencil. No one comes by to visit anyway besides his grandmother, so he’s free to write out all of his thoughts in neat writing and messy emotions; he ignores how reverently he writes Akashi’s name.

 

He writes draft after draft of  _ something _ , trying to find the right words to say to accompany his news. Except his experience in literature fails him now, and wit is not a fellow one wants to encounter in things such as these. In the end, his result is a paltry two sentences, but Kuroko figures it’s the best draft out of all of them.

 

He drops the letter in the office before slipping away like the true phantom he is. No one will notice him once again. No one will tell him that he matters again. No one will ever love him like Akashi once did ever again.

 

But at the same time, no one will ever hurt him again.

 

There’s no tears, just a painful realization as his heart tears into two at the flashing memories of the resignation slip.

 

_ I will be breaking off from the club. Please do not hate me. _

 

It’s fine if Akashi lets the entire first string see it, and they end up hating him. It’s fine if Akashi is the only one to see his hidden message; it’s meant for him anyway, and as much as he loves – loved? – the others, the redhead will always matter more. As long as his former captain doesn’t hate him, that’s fine.

 

Goodbye, the blinding bright fondness, soft-spoken affections, and the once sweet-tempered kisses against his temple.

 

There is only bittersweetness left now, and it leaves a disgusting taste in Kuroko’s mouth. But later on, Kuroko will taste liberation in the empty four-walled world of his bedroom, and it’s a nice consolation prize for losing all he’s ever held close to his heart. 

 

(But only momentarily. Then he’ll wonder why he felt liberated when he doesn’t  _ truly _ know if he and Akashi are over. Maybe Akashi will send him a text, one with a message as cryptic as his letter but blindingly obvious when it comes to the two of them that’ll dictate what they are now.

 

He doesn’t, though, so Kuroko figures that  _ maybe _ there’s a chance. A chance of exactly what – is he hoping for a breakup? a continuation? – is something he’s still figuring out, but he has three years to do it. 

Only three, his brain reminds him.)

 

* * *

 

On the day of, Kuroko doesn’t attend the ceremony, feigning sickness with a weary voice and quiet coughs. The coughs were false, almost obviously so, but he thinks that the realness of his exasperation makes the school pity him enough to excuse his absence. His body is weak and tired to the point that the call is enough to sap the rest of his energy, and he only buries himself farther under his sheets the moment the phone call ends.

 

When he wakes up, it’s to a sunset greeting him. It says goodbye in its burning glory of warm yellows and oranges, and in its lullaby of cool blues and purples; Kuroko wants to greet the sky back -- the very same sky that he’s always been compared to and loved for -- but he can’t find it in himself to do it.

 

Not when the arrival of calm blues is accompanied by the coldness of reds and golds; it’s sad how much of Akashi Kuroko will see, will imagine to see, in anything that holds the warmth of red or gold.. Is he that desperate for something from him?

 

(Yes.)

 

By the time Kuroko manages to peel his eyes away from the beautiful but cursed sight, there’s almost no trace of  _ him _ left -- just the dark, dark night sky. There’s no moon either, and Kuroko finds it fitting yet foreboding.

 

His eyes catch sight of a different thing, but not-so-different as well as he feels emotions rush to his head; it’s a framed picture of the Teikou team in its second year. They had always looked like a ragtag group of misfits with their assortment of hair colors and distinct expressions but even more so in that single moment.

 

Murasakibara stood in the back behind everyone, but he still towered over the team with a maiubo stick in his mouth. Midorima was scolding the giant, taped hands clutching onto the signature Kerosuke plush that was no doubt his lucky item and would end up being his symbol. Kise and Aomine both had an around Akashi and Kuroko respectively, but the blond looked as if he was about to wail at Aomine for rubbing in the fact that he was touching Kuroko.

 

But, for as loud as the others’ presence were, blue eyes found themselves returning to the same thing.

 

Kuroko notices now the softness of Akashi’s gaze, red eyes focused to the side where the blue-haired male stood with the smallest hints of a smile. It reminds Kuroko of the same looks they would send to each other from across the court during training and matches; his heart hurts when he realizes how long ago Akashi had felt this way yet had never been noticed.

 

(Kuroko understands that he’s been pining over the redhead for probably a little bit longer, but it doesn’t matter. Whether he’s talking about his own feelings or the time spent pining, he doesn’t know.)

 

The small male only smiles sadly. Tomorrow, he’ll have to start looking for his high school because middle school could only last for so long; it’s a short three years.

 

Kuroko places the picture back on his bedstand, letting himself look at it for a little bit longer before he puts it face down. It’ll be a gentle reminder that Teikou is no longer the present.

 

No longer is Teikou his middle school but instead, a symbol of the temporariness in basketball and in Akashi. It’s three quick years, gone in an instant, just like how basketball will be in the end and how Akashi was in the end.

 

But just before sleep ultimately consumes him, the traitorous voice inside him can’t help but whisper brokenly to Akashi’s back,  _ “You didn’t forget, did you _ ? _ About the sweet promise you made to me?” _   
  
  
  



End file.
